On Tuesday the 12th of October the class went orienteering for the second time this year, at the Ballyannan Walkway. Firstly we all ate our lunch so we would have energy for the journey and then left our school at 9:35am, meeting our volunteers on the way. It was a great laugh on the way up finding out where people have gone around the town or stories they’ve heard about places. When we arrived at Ballyannan woods car park we had some water and some people put on a different pair of shoes and then we got our maps and set off within 30 second intervals between each group.
It was quite a long run, I’m pretty sure it was 3.6km. Seán the gentleman from Bishopstown Orienteering Club who organised the event, times everyone and when we were finished our teacher Don, would write down our time and then we were allowed to go have a snack. When everyone came back Seán announced the winners. In our class the winners were Jack M and Fergal who received medals. At the previous event at Midleton Lodge, the winners were Jack S and Micheal.
Once we all had recovered from the orienteering run, we packed up and set off on our journey to the Market Square, where we finished our lunch. Once we got there a few people just lay down on benches because they were so tired but once they heard that we were getting ice creams they shot up! Our teacher got us some ice pops in Super Valu. We played a few games and then made our way back.
Finally we got to the school and said thank you to our volunteers Paula and Eugene. Overall it was a great experience and I would love to do it again and I definitely think it was a great activity and I enjoyed learning all the symbols from the maps and how to navigate an orienteering course.
All three 6th classes had the opportunity to take part after learning the skills needed for orienteering in their PE lessons.
By Isabelle – 6th Class Don
